talismans
by vivafiction
Summary: in egyptian-hot sands, a princess reclaims the dust from whence she came. -— katara & zuko. au, prince of egypt.
1. —no sleep in heaven

**title** — talismans  
**pairing** — katara & zuko  
**warnings** — none  
**etc** — thanks to lara and shannon who lent me the finesse of their grammar (as i have none, oops)

…

**no sleep in heaven, or bethlehem**;  
—mama who bore me  
…

It's inexplicable.

Her arms tremble with strain even after she rests the basket in the rushing water as if they can sense the absence of such a familiar burden.

_Not a burden_, she chastises herself swiftly as she kneels in the dirt. Kya draws her fingertips through the water, watching the ripples. _Never a burden_. Her eyes flutter shut at the sounds of mirthful laughter babbling from tiny lungs and she can't help but smile sadly. Kya had expected to find relief in the knowledge that she was going to do this, but the wide glitter of Katara's eyes and the prickle of her laughter in her ears easily rips through her wildly, in a way that only makes her want to gather her baby girl up in her arms until it all heals up inside.

"Katara," she croaks and Katara answers with a squeal, her tiny fists raised. Kya notices the way that the water underneath the basket sways in dangerous alignment to the motion of her fists.

She grasps her tiny wrists, frowns when she can feel the pulse of control, the tension of gravity like the moon is pulling at her blood. Kya tucks the blanket tighter around her, pulls it up to Katara's chin, and tries to smooth out the wobbly line of what she thinks is a smile.

Katara stares back from her safe haven, round blue eyes darting back and forth between the contradictory emotions of her mother's face and the little boy plotted down in the silt of the river, plucking at the reeds.

_This is it_.

Kya chokes on a sob and the little boy catapults his reed carelessly into the receding line of the water to wedge his way into his mother's lap. The gesture emanates compassion, as though he already feels the responsibility of taking care of her on his shoulders, even though his attempt is weak at best.

She breathes in deeply, tries to smile at the warmth of her son against her. She'll always have Sokka and she should at least be grateful for that.

"Bye," Sokka whispers quietly as he folds his hand in an imitation of a wave, and Kya lifts her head to see the currents carrying the basket away from the edge of the river.

Panic rises in the center of her chest and nearly smothers her as she cries out, "Katara!" She pushes Sokka from her lap and jumps into the water, her feet squelching in the riverbed before she propels herself forward. She can hear Sokka crying out for her but it seems like a distant noise as she treads haphazardly, leaping forward to try and grasp the ends of the basket floating away.

But her commotion has attracted attention from the other side of the river tributary, because a flame skims just over the surface of Kya's head, lands with a burst of heat and air in the foliage on the other side. She hears Sokka's yelp and turns back to see him scampering away from the concentrated blast of heat.

Kya is stuck between responsibilities, between her daughter and her son, and she feels herself shrinking back under the pressure. She wants Katara, she can feel the ache in her womb for her daughter, but she cannot sacrifice Sokka.

_I will not_. So she shrieks her surrender, praying that Katara has drifted away far enough, hoping that she can distract them. The two guards wade over the distance, moving swiftly as Kya is coughed up into the smooth sand and crunch of reeds under her knees.

Sokka kneels in front of her and presses himself to her body, ignoring the fact that she's drenched in water. "I love you," she says as she tugs him closer. The uncomfortable bundle in her throat breaks up as she tries to swallow her tears, but fails. "Run."

She pushes him into the tall grass and watches his eyes widen and tears fill the creases before she lets out a shocked noise, the sensation of pain blossoming down her spine.

She falls forward into the muddy soil and grass as Sokka runs away and she can see the guards' feet poised near her and she whimpers as they grab a fistful of her hair and yanks her into a kneeling position.

"What are you doing, _filth_," the guard spits at her and she feels dirty on his words alone. But all Kya can think about is Katara, floating peaceably down the river, full of waterbending power, and Sokka, running through the woods until he reaches their small village. She grits her teeth together with that in mind.

"I," her voice shakes and she coughs to clear her throat, "my baby," she mumbles just loud enough for them to hear, "I didn't want my baby anymore."

The guard with her hair tangled in his fist tilts her back painfully and looks over her face before he laughs and thrusts her back into the ground. Kya digs her nails into the soil, trembles as she tries to steady herself.

The two guards seem to be aware of a joke that Kya misses as she shakes the mud off of her hands and gets to her feet, edging away from them. One guard elbows the other, grinning and whispering something that makes her cheeks burn with shame. She doesn't hear it, but the way they turn to look at her conveys more than words could.

"Next time," a guard pipes up, seemingly ignorant to the way Kya's eyes follow the shoreline, "you ought to keep your filthy legs closed. Get back to your village." His eyes linger in the dangerous way and it takes Kya a few seconds to process before she's darting back into the brush, hoping that Sokka has found his way back to the village safely by now.

Kya stumbles down the dusty path in front of their small tent and it's Sokka who sees her first, dirt-caked fingernails thrown in the air at the sight of her. But Hakoda pulls the little boy into his arms before he can run off, carrying them over to her. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and it feels good to be steadied, so she leans into his broad chest.

"She's gone," she says with a hollow concavity to her voice. Hakoda's lips form a thin line and he nods his head curtly.

"She's safe," he reminds her with a gentle kiss to her forehead.

…

**notes **— this whole story is dedicated to **bean** and **shannon** for encouraging bad ideas, **socks** and **yin** for unnecessary (but vastly appreciated) support. last lullabies are depressing. and slightly overrated, i have a bad track record with lullabies. prepare for baby zuko point of view. also, vast apologies, this whole multi-chaptered epic thing is new to me.


	2. —here, the river brought you

**title** — talismans  
**pairing** — katara & zuko  
**warnings** — none  
**etc** — i made a last minute decision to push these two parts together, you'll thank me down the line. mind the age gaps.

…

**here, the river brought you, and it's here the river meant to be your home**  
—all i wanted, _the prince of egypt_  
…

"Mama!"

A little boy toddles along the edge of the water, his white and gold clothes soaked through as he splashes forward.

"_Mama_!" He screams again and his nurses wince as he stomps his way through the shallow water with a stick clutched in his hand. He slams it down into the water before he uses it to hook into a handle on a wicker basket.

"Yes, my little duck." The nurses swivel their heads back to watch their mistress lift the smooth fabric of her clothes as she steps into the water, clutching the white material.

He pulls the basket closer until he can latch his small hands on the edge and peer inside of it, dropping his stick into the water. "What's this?" He sticks a palm into the basket, brushes the smooth brown skinned sleeping baby.

His mother finally stands beside him and gasps loudly as she looks in the basket. She grips the edges of the basket and starts to back away from the water. The little boy skips through the water after his mother and the nurses close in on her as she lifts the basket out.

"A baby, Zuko," she says with awe in her voice, nudging him back so she can carefully extract the little girl from the damp blankets she's cocooned in, "an adorable, baby girl."

…

Zuko doesn't _like_ this new baby.

Whenever anyone other than his mother holds her, she starts to cry—which seems pretty ungrateful, considering he's the one who pulled her to safety, instead of letting her drift along the river until it flooded. And he had to let go of his stick, and it was a _really_ good stick.

She looks different, _funny_, to him, because her skin is the same color as the women who bring their food in, and Zuko has never seen anyone else that color.

So when he climbs into a chair to sit at the table with his family, he scowls slightly at the sight of the new baby perched in his mother's lap. His father doesn't seem too much happier for the wear, so he slides down in his seat and focuses his attention on whipping the ponytail of his hair around his head.

"Some peasant woman has clearly failed at drowning her child—"

"Ozai!" Zuko looks up at the sound of his mother's voice, but then turns his head back down. His mother is bouncing that little girl in her arms protectively and jealousy bubbles up in him. _It's not fair_; he folds his arms across his bare chest.

"She's adorable," Ursa coos and extends a finger to the little girl, who latches onto it with a gurgle and soft sigh. She nuzzles her face close into Ursa's chest and Zuko kicks his feet out until they rattle the table.

"Zuko," his mother turns her head to look at him and he doesn't want to smile, his mom wants to _keep_ this baby and that is silly. His father thinks the baby should have drowned, though, and Zuko is old enough to know that it isn't much better.

So he sits up in his seat a little more and investigates this baby a little bit more. Her eyes are round and wide and dart around as if she will miss something if she blinks, even for a moment. And they're blue, and Zuko has never seen anyone with blue eyes. Even the women who bring their food in have dark eyes, sometimes gold like his own, but this blue reminds Zuko of the sky, clear and vibrant.

And she's so dark. Zuko's not sure he will ever quite get used to that.

"Azula will have a sister," she says with a smile, and Zuko sits back because the servers have filed in with dishes of food to set before them. "She looks a little older, though it's certainly hard to tell." His mother rests her palm in the center of the baby's back, grazing her lips across her hairline soothingly.

"Her name is Katara," Ursa adds with a firm kiss, "it was sewn into her blanket. Katara."

Zuko frowns, his face schooled into concentration. "Katara?" he mimics, pushing himself up into kneeling in his chair. His mother turns and smiles at him, and he smiles back infectiously.

Maybe this new baby isn't so terrible.

…

Katara _isn't_ the terrible one, Zuko comes to realize as his mother presses his sister into his arms and she latches onto his hair with a squall.

"Azula!" he cries as she wails, her body a gigantic weight in his hands, "let go of my hair!"

Ursa plucks Azula away and tugs until she releases Zuko's hair, and the toddler grumbles as he moves to sit on the floor in front of Katara. Her head had been craned back to watch the commotion, but now that it's over, her attention is focused on a wooden block carved intricately in the likeness of the winged sun disk. She grips it tightly and waves it about before she pushes one of the pointed wings in her mouth and fixes Zuko with a curious, blue stare.

He huffs and shuffles away from her.

"Why aren't there more boys," Zuko says irritably and his mother sends him a withering look that does its job as his shoulders sag.

It shouldn't be so difficult to adjust to this idea. Azula and Katara are a lot smaller than him and require a lot more attention than he does. All the attention his mother has previously afforded him will be evenly divided between the two of them, and it is his hand-me-down of sorts.

The idea only saddens him a little bit more than he expects it to.

…

**the walk home was really long  
(please don't tell me)**  
—what went wrong  
…

"You're _not_ supposed to be playing in the solar temple!"

Zuko's fists ball at his sides as his yells echo throughout the temple. It is a marvelous structure, entirely crafted of mudbricks and overlaid with limestone, especially in the courtyard in front of the altar where he stood. Zuko had been to the solar temple a few times with his uncle, and he took great care to talk about the quartz and red granite that the Earth servants had mined specifically for this reason.

He had been largely disinterested because he hated hearing about Uncle's encounters with those who were now Earth servants on the mainland; he always had some gross thing to say about how _voluptuous_ the women were.

And here he is, _trying_ to do his duty as the firstborn and the Prince, visiting the solar temple and sitting in front of the dusty-bricked obelisk; to be honest, he didn't understand the difference between the temple and the beautiful, limestone-cut dials in his mother's favorite garden.

But Zuko didn't complain too much because Uncle had told him plenty of stories about those who worshipped the sun, more than most with fire ingrained in their blood; the things he'd chosen to remember were the ritualistic chanting and way they dressed and how uncultured it seemed to him.

So at least he doesn't have to do _that_.

And here are his sisters, defiling the solar temple with their _childish_ playing. His warnings go unheard as the two girls circle one another in stances that mix combat with playfulness.

"Don't be a fun ruiner, Zuzu," Azula drawls with her hands held out towards Katara. She is agile, shifting between her feet like the wind is blowing her about, her bare torso twisting as she narrows her eyes on Katara.

Katara giggles, the bottom of her robes hiking up over her legs as she hops back and forth, "Yeah, _Zuzu_," she levels a kick at Azula's head but the Princess ducks, charges at Katara's midsection. She shrieks when they topple back and land hard on the courtyard floor, but Katara tucks and rolls Azula onto her back with a triumphant grin.

She locks her hands over the golden cuffs on her wrists with a haughty, "Ha!"

Zuko lets out a strangled cry of frustration before he turns on his heel, his hair whipping out behind him, and storms away from the obelisk and its carved altar, towards the passageway that stretches back towards the valley temple. By the time he reaches the covered path, his feet ache and every exhale comes out as a whine, and where are those _stupid_ annoying guards when he actually wants to be carried back somewhere?

Katara catches up to him first, her fingers snatching the smooth material wound around his waist. Zuko balks for a moment, feels the tug and clutches at the hem as she skips up beside him. The knot of her hair is slightly askew from her impromptu fight with Azula, and curly strands slip out as she smooths the crop of hair too short for her band as it falls across her forehead.

"Were you going to meditate?" She bounces on the balls of her feet as he trudges and Zuko glowers at her, because how does she have so much energy? He lets out a sigh and looks over at her again, deflating.

Katara is different than Azula, she always has been. The two of them were partners in crime in everything and even though it was Katara who seemed to drum up the most dangerous, inappropriate ideas, Azula was the domineering one, surprised when a little bit of luck and nonchalance led to Katara taking charge.

But Katara's round cheeks are lifted in a smile at him, for no reason other than him being there, and Zuko knows that is a solid difference for the two girls. "I was _going_ to," he huffs with a frown, "now I'll have to tell father—"

"That you meditated with me?" Zuko could hear the question in her voice and when he looked at her, those eyes were widened further than necessary, lip pouted out at him. His eyes bulged incredulously.

"You want me to lie!"

"_You _want to get us all in trouble, Zuko!"

The Prince storms through the open door at the valley passageway, a narrow tunnel that will spit them out into the valley temple. The walls had always felt daunting to Zuko, being in total darkness save the flickering, weak light of torches on the cavernous walls, and Katara edges closer as her eyes dart around.

"Please?" She winds her arms around his waist and digs her feet into the ground, and Zuko grunts. _Stupid, stubborn, _annoying _little girl, thinks she can get away with everything_. But his feet hurt, blisteringly so, even though the stones in the passageway are smoothly carved. He tries to pry her hands loose, but she lets out a sharp cry and he stops with a frown.

"Katara—"

"I'm _scared_," she mumbles into his back and his shoulders sag. Zuko turns and feels wetness smearing as he moves before he stops and crouches down. He can see her fingers out of the corner of his eye, plucking at the golden rope tied around her waist, keeping her robes together, and a tear drops into the sandy floor.

"Climb on," he says in a quiet, irritable voice, and she clambers onto his back, her arms wound around his neck tightly. Zuko stands up, grumbles quietly to himself because he's already offered, and even worse than explaining to his father why he let his sisters run around the temple—

(Zuko didn't _let_ them, but as a leader, ultimate responsibility for all things that happened under his watch, his father told him, were what he allowed, and since he _allowed_ them to do it, then it was his responsibility.)

—would be explaining to his mother that Katara had to be fetched by a guard because he'd left her in the temple, crying and scared.

"How did you get down here if you were scared?" It comes out as a taunt, but he's honestly curious, and perhaps slightly bitter, and…perhaps it _is_ a taunt. Zuko's feet are too raw and he's too annoyed to decipher his own tone of voice.

"Azula lit it with her fire," she sniffles into his neck, wiping a hand over her face. Zuko can only tell because she shifts and her fingers brush his cheek as she moves around, "It's all blue, and it's really pretty, and she held it out for us."

He doesn't think about how she can produce the blue fire in bursts; Uncle had told him, when Azula had performed the feat in front of their father, that blue fire burned the hottest, but red fire burned the fiercest.

Not that it mattered to his father, who only saw maximum effectiveness and destruction in the blue flames.

"Don't let Azula yank you around," he says quietly, to Katara, to himself, with his hands hooked under her legs, "don't let _anyone_ yank you around, _ever_."

Zuko nearly stumbles as he walks across the darkly lit valley temple and out into the blistering afternoon sun, squinting into the sunlight as people are starting to make the journey into the sun temple. A couple of people on their own brush past the Prince and Princess without acknowledgement, which suits Zuko just fine.

It's when he and Katara have hit the last of the stairs that he even notices the other little girl waving frantically at him.

And then, Katara hollers, "Hi, Ty Lee!" Zuko's face reddens as she leans back and waves one of her hands, the other still coiled around his neck, and then slides down his back to run past him and towards her. She's standing beside another little girl who winces at Katara's exclamation and folds her arms when the two girls embrace one another tightly.

"Hi, Mai," Katara says shyly, pulls back to wave slightly at her, and then tilts her head up before she bows, "Vizier."

Mai shoves Katara to the side despite the fact that her father smiles at the recognition; her mother, however, leans over and scolds her. "Mai, don't be so _rough_ with the young Princess!"

Zuko grits his teeth in annoyance, watching the girls as they start to group up and slink away from Mai's parents, and he starts to turn back to their palace when, "Zuko!"

He cringes, his feet paused mid-step. When he turns, he lifts a hand to scratch at his scalp, dislodge the neatly pulled ponytail his hair has been arranged in. "I'm not _playing_ with _girls_!" he near-shrieks before he takes off running in the sand.

His feet hurt, but he'll be happy to be away from them, even if for a little while.

…

**notes** — baby princesses are the cutiest. egyptian sun temples are the perfect child playground. if you want a better picture than my terrible descriptions then check out anything to do with niuserre. also, it might be a few weeks before chapter three, but i promise i will have it out to you as soon as possible. that being said, i am thriving on feedback and reviews, so if there's something you dislike (or like), please let me know! or questions, questions are great, ha.


	3. —from babies into flowers in our eyes

**title** — talismans  
**pairing** — katara & zuko  
**warnings** — none  
**etc** — ty lee is the one secondary character i wish was a primary

…

**all the kids have bloomed  
from babies into flowers in our eyes  
**—i will never leave your side

…

Zuko hates the days when his mother is too busy to take him into her gardens, whether she is consumed with their father's business or other things that need tending to, so he enjoys visiting the plush gardens, flowing with water and foliage and plenty of spaces to relax.

But as he squints into the sky, watching the sun hit its zenith, he wonders if it's possible to dunk his face in the shallow water and drown himself because of all of the shrieking and giggling going on. It echoes in playful bursts, even to the secluded end of the garden where he's perched himself, and short of slamming his palms against his ears, he doesn't know how to block the sound out of his mind.

Even still, he can't keep his eyes away from it, away from them. Ty Lee laughs, vaults backwards into an elegant split in the grass, tossing her hands up with a shout and a flourish. Beside her, Katara dances in place, bare feet hopping, dress twirling around her legs. "You lost _again_, Azula." It's Katara who lets the smug tone permeate her voice, halting her victory two step in order to fold her arms across her chest and level a potent smirk at the other princess.

Azula looks as if she will begin to steam just from Katara's insolence alone, and Zuko watches his sister with something akin to nervousness shaking through his bones. A complacent Mai trails along at her side, ambivalent to the entire situation.

"It's not my fault both of you are freaks," and where Ty Lee's lips start to drift into a wobbly pout, Katara only flicks stray curls out of her face and narrows her blue eyes at her sister. Zuko stares, because _both _of these girls are explosive in each other's presence, and he has seen simple stick-and-stone games turn into tumbles of fists and tangles of hair being pulled, because _he_ has had to pull them apart.

He's certain that Katara hasn't forgotten their last fight, especially from the way her fingers still ghost over her skin where curls of hair used to tickle her cheek; Zuko remembered walking with Katara to their parents' bedchambers, standing quietly in the doorway as his mother drew scissors along Katara's charred curls in order to even them out.

"Well, then," Katara pops her hip out to the side, grinning as her toes squirm along the grass, "you let yourself lose to a couple of _freaks_?" She looks down at Ty Lee, holds her hand out to pull the girl up to stand at her side.

Azula's lips pull into a tight bow, but she doesn't speak. She turns around to Mai, who stares at Katara with a look that borders on hostility, and latches her fingers into the crook of her arm. "Have you seen my brother?" she asks so suddenly that Mai jumps, face reddening, and Zuko himself shirks back into the shadows where he'd been observing.

What unsettles him the most is that Mai's eyes connect with his instantly, as if she'd known where he was the moment she walked into the garden. His sister's friends unsettle him in ways he has difficulty describing, because his sister unsettles him; Azula, of course, because the way that she sinks her talons into them and drags them bloody through her whims is frightening.

Ty Lee smiles, turns end over end with laughter bubbling from her throat like air, twists unruly strands of Katara's hair into braids. And Mai, well, she is quiet and reserved, she stores her venom away and simply observes. Katara is the freest of them all, but only when Azula isn't around.

Zuko likes them better that way.

Zuko marches over towards them, just as Azula croons, "Come join us, darling brother," and he knots his hands into fists, stopping between them.

"Azula, I really—"

He feels Katara's fingers wind into the maze of his own before he notices that she's standing closer to him than she was before, and he looks down at her in confusion. "Just play," she says in exasperation, in a voice that knows resistance is never an option, "please."

His eyes widen as he looks down at their hands before he rips his away, sidling away from Katara. She doesn't seem hurt by his actions, though, and simply lets her hand fall back to her side. He tilts his head back, a withering look tossed in Azula's direction, but she only takes on the dangerous innocence he imagines a coiled viper-rat has, right before it darts forward and pours venom into its prey.

Azula grins ferally, flits around the garden once she has her brother's attention. She plucks two apples down from one of the trees, and grabs both Mai and Katara, dragging them towards the fountain. "All right, brother," she says as she lines the two girls up, shoulders barely rubbing together, before she thrusts the apples into their hands, "let me show you what we're going to do now."

Zuko shifts, moving closer to his sister as she draws her hand underneath her chin inquisitively. "Mai, Katara," she barks, "put the apples on your heads." Zuko's eyes linger on the girls; Mai tips the apple into the center of her head, pulling her hands in front of her and churning them nervously in her skirts, but Katara runs her nails along the apple as if she'd rather take a bite out of it – but she relents, nudging it against the coiled bun of her hair until it stays still.

"Now," the princess circles back to her brother's side, legs inched apart, "what you do is try to knock the apples off of their heads."

And before he can stop her, she roots her feet in the ground, and twists her torso rapidly; a thin stream of flame swirls from her hands, the precise shots spearing through both of the apples. Mai's apple wobbles, tips off of her head and back into the fountain. But Katara's catches fire and Zuko can almost see the deliberation of the fire spreading through the fruit, and he sprints towards her.

But Katara shrieks, slapping the apple off of her head and onto the ground in front of her, and when she spots Zuko careening towards them, she grabs Mai by the shoulders and jerks her backwards. Zuko lands in the fountain, hands and knees immediately raw, water pouring down over his head, and even with it dripping in his ears, he can hear Azula's loud laughter.

Ty Lee giggles, and when Zuko twists to face the girls, Mai and Katara are perched at the edge of the fountain. "Zuko," Katara starts, holding her hand out, but he slaps it away as he crawls out of the water, his face screwed up in frustration.

"You're all _crazy_!" he screams, and part of him wishes he'd just drowned in the water.

…

**notes** — sorry this took so long, and really, i almost omitted this because it reeks of filler, but there are tiny things that factor into later chapters (and i like writing about the "secondary" characters). and i really like little atla kids, there are a few more chapters left of them before things escalate. (if you're thinking of asking me exactly how old they are, hang in there until the next chapter because there will be birthday celebrations.)

there were some pretty important questions in the last few reviews, so rather than answer them personally like i intended, i put the questions and my answers here.

_**lissyferret7**: I love it but how are you going to get the two together if they see themselves as siblings?_ it's still very early in the story telling process, but i'm sure if you squint, you can start to distinguish some things that differentiate how zuko views katara as opposed to how he views azula. but be patient! i promise by the time they get together, you'll know they don't see themselves as siblings.

_**KJun**: Will you be answering questions as to why, where when, and how all the characters got to the point they were at in the first chapter that explains why, for one thing, Katara had to be sent down the river in a basket?_ the timeline and the way things are explained in this story is very much modeled after the way things are revealed in the prince of egypt. there isn't a whole lot of explanation in the beginning as to why moses is being shuffled off, but he later learns the reasoning behind it. i liked that method of story telling, so i sort of used that in this story.


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